Sunday, October 7, 2007

Swapping forwards

What's a sign of a team in a rhythm? When the two starting forwards are left at home and the team goes on the road and scores three goals nonetheless.

Without Ante Razov and Maykel Galindo, Chivas USA hit the road and walked away with a 3-2 win at Real Salt Lake. John Cunliffe and Laurent Merlin started in place of Razov and Galindo and offered hope that should either of the two get injured, there will be good cover for them.

Cunliffe had two goals while Merlin had an assist and Chivas USA's midfield chipped in with another strong effort. The defense had some uncharacteristic breakdowns but overall the result was solid.

Paulo Nagamura scored Chivas' other goal with a long-range bomb. He's not a goal scorer by any means - that goal is just the second of his career - but he showed he's not afraid of taking shots like that.

Chivas is within sights of the Supporters' Shield. They've got a game in hand over DC and are three points back. Next week will be telling. On Thursday, Chivas will make up that game in hand as the visit FC Dallas and will then host the Rapids and Houston to close out the season.

4 comments:

blahblah said...

Thanks so much for blogging about this. I think its a brilliant move by Preki thats paying off yet again.

EdTheRed said...

Effectively Chivas is 4 points back. DC owns the first tiebreaker, having won the match in DC and drawn at the HDC. Interesting end to the season, though, that's for sure.

JT Soccer said...

As long as the playoffs winner wins the MLS Cup, the Supporters Shield means zlich - it doesn't even win you home field advantage for the Final.

Until MLS fixes that situation, the Supporters Shield race means nothing. One more thing to fix MLS.

Nathan Henderson-James said...

Actually, JT, the Supporters Shield gets you the second MLS spot in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. This year DC and Houston played in what is a pre-season tournament for MLS teams and did well, if not well enough to break the MLS-teams-lose-in-mexico jinx.

The real thing to fix is the US Open Cup which is about as meaningless as it comes, despite its history.